‘I Always Thought of Her As Mom’: Boy Who Made Touching Plea to be Adopted Finds A Family… With The Caseworker Who Always Loved Him

Though he’s only a few years from becoming an adult, a young man in Florida is finally getting the home he’s wanted his entire life. Since his mother was born in jail, Davion was in foster care from the day he was born. He’s escaping the system and being adopted by the woman he’s always loved as a mother: his former caseworker.

Davion Navar Henry Only, 16, became the face of adoption and an example of all the struggles faced by many teenagers in the system when in 2013 he stood up in a suit and told worshipers at Florida’s St Mark Missionary Baptist Church; ‘My name is Davion and I’ve been in foster care since I was born. I know God hasn’t given up on me, so I’m not giving up either.’

After an appearance on The View, Davion was adopted by an Ohio family but returned to the foster care system in Florida after getting in a fight with the another child in the home.

Davion had cut himself off from other people, playing video games as he quickly went through four different homes and four schools in less than year.

Going says she had begun to call him numerous times, but always hung up the phone. Then, one night last July, Davion called up Miss Connie and asked her the question he had been asking since they first met when he was only a little boy.

‘Do you remember what I asked you before?’ he said.’Well, how do you feel about adopting me now?’

For the first time since he had asked, Going was finally able to give him the answer he wanted to hear.

by Sir John Hawkins

John Hawkins's book 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know is filled with lessons that newly minted adults need in order to get the most out of life. Gleaned from a lifetime of trial, error, and writing it down, Hawkins provides advice everyone can benefit from in short, digestible chapters.

The 52-year-old had three children of her own, one adopted and two biological daughters, and was a single mother, but she was no longer Davion’s case worker, which made the process easier.

From August through December he started spending more and more time with the family, a perfect fit as he was already close to Going’s adopted son Tyler. Then, in December, Going got a lawyer and began the process of adopting Davion.

Davion got his first bedroom, his first set of siblings, and, most importantly, the one thing he had been hoping for all along.
‘I guess I always thought of you as my mom,’ Davion said to Going last December.

‘Only now I get to call you that for real, right?’

Going is set to officially become Davion’s mother on April 22, and she will admit it has not been an easy task.

Davion officially became part of the family in February however, when after he and Going celebrated their birthdays, which fall on the same date, they went home and sat around the table for cake with his three siblings and signed the court papers.

After 16 years, Davion was finally home.

What’s more, because of that day in September 2013 when Davion stepped up on the pulpit, hundreds of others have been adopted as well.

It’s apparent that there was a higher power involved in bringing Going and Davion together in the first place, and heartwarming to see that after all these years he is finally home.